Light Years
by Damon's Leather
Summary: Saying goodbye isn't painful unless you're never going to say hello again.


It is winter; the plants are no longer in bloom. The only color is that of the Evergreens. Tree branches are empty, except for the occasion brown, dead leaves. Angry skies, harsh winds, fierce clouds and a light dusting of snow. Despite it all, Elena is happy because she's standing in the church with Damon for their wedding rehearsal.

"Damon will read his vows and then you'll read yours. Then they'll be the exchange of rings," the priest explains, smiling at the happy couple.

"Can we get to the part where I get to kiss the bride?" Damon winks at the older man.

"Go ahead," he laughs, stepping back and out of the way, allowing Damon to pull Elena into his arms and kiss her sweetly then whispering in her ear what he has planned for her later...

"Alright you two," Caroline interrupts. "I have to run, I'll give you a call tomorrow," she gives her best friend a quick hug then hurries out of the church.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elena notices that she left her planner behind. "I'm going to catch Care, she'll lose her mind if she can't find it later."

He moves to steal another kiss but in her haste to leave, he misses her lips and ends up brushing the sweetest one along her cheek. Both laugh as she heads for the door. With a twinkle in his eyes, he promises to make it up to her later. She runs out of the church without even taking the time to throw her jacket on.

Suddenly the sound of screeching tires, busting glass, and painful screams that he hears last, forgotten as he runs outside and towards the crumpled body laying in the middle of the street. The driver is frantic, pacing the road as she's relaying information to emergency services. Everything blurs as soon as he spots her.

With all the chaos surrounding her, people cupping their mouths, eyes full of fear, there she is, the very picture of calm in the middle of the road. Lying with bits of glass and the ever expanding pool of blood that's forming a halo around her head, she doesn't move...

He instantly crumples to the ground, his legs shaking so hard they can no longer hold his weight and his knees hit hard on the pavement. With trembling hands, he reaches out to her. His hands scan her body, not sure where to touch to offer her some comfort, some reassurance.

He doesn't hear the sirens wailing, growing loud as they approach. He's in shock as the paramedics urge him back so they can do their job. Nothing penetrates his mind, the only thing he's aware of is his body being tugged way from her.

Insisting that she's his fiancé, they allow him to ride along to the hospital. In the passenger seat, he sits frozen with his hands clenched together the entire ride to the hospital. Upon arrival, she's instantly whisked away again. He tried to feel her but there's nothing but emptiness and dread.

Finally a somber looking nurse takes him to her. He gasps, finding her deathly pale, brutally bruised and cut. Although he knows it's hopeless, he begs her to fight, to live, to come back to him. He offers empty promises of a life they will no longer share and repeated vows of his unending love.

Her eyes briefly flutter open and she's with him long enough to say the simplest of goodbyes. She makes sure he knows that her love for him is timeless. In a few simple words and broken sentences, she assures him that one day they will be together again.

It's not enough, but it's all she can give. He hangs on her every word, cherishes her every gasping syllable. And takes comfort in her promise of a love that not even death cannot end.

She gives his hand a squeeze, a tear leaks from her eye and after one last shuddering breath the siren indicating the fail of her heart blares loudly. The sound of her death is loud, so loud that it shatters his heart, leaving it in broken and jagged pieces on the floor.

Her death is pronounced. Words of sympathy and condolences are offered but it's all still a blur, a nightmare that he wants to wake from. When they once again leave him alone, he crawls onto the bed with her, curling his body around hers that seems to grow more cold by the second.

He stays that way continuously murmuring assurances and more promises of love, hoping to ease the ache of the broken ones that lay scattered in this room and on the street outside the church. He prays, begging the deity to exchange her life for his. And above all else, he hopes that after she had so courageously found his heart, he'd be able to restart hers.

It takes a small army to pry him from her and those who love them best surround him. He fights hard but In the end, he lets go and collapses into their arms accepting the comfort they offer.

* * *

Three days later he's back inside the church where only days ago they faced each other and held hands while rehearse their big day. Instead of starting their life together, he has to get used to a life without her in it. As he sits on the pew in the still empty building, he can't help but reflect on the empty irony of it all.

He wasn't a relationship kind of guy until she stormed into his life. As hard as he fought it, he completely gave into the overwhelming urge to be with her and now instead of pledging his undying love in front of their family and friends, he has to say goodbye - long before he could ever be ready. Despite knowing the risks of loving a whirlwind, he let himself fall totally and irrevocably in love with her.

He had been so sure that they would have years together... instead fate spit on him and their time was cut short by something that not only blindsided him but all of them. No one could have predicted something like this. It happened so fast, one moment he was kissing her and promising to make it up to her, the next he's forced to come to terms with the unthinkable. He didn't have time to make her his wife. He didn't even have time to properly say goodbye.

The pew creaks beside him but he doesn't lift his eyes to see who it is. All of them have been hovering. Part of him resents it but the other part realizes that they're just as lost without her as he is and that they're doing their best to ensure that he won't break. What they don't seem to understand though is - there's nothing left inside him to break._ She _took it all with her.

He feels a small hand curl around his and the weight of her head on his shoulder. He draws some comfort in the way it feels like _her_ but doesn't give in to it completely.

"It shouldn't have happened like this" she whispers.

"I know," he returns, his voice coarse.

Her tears wet his shirt and she grasps his hand a little more tightly. It seems as though the entire town has been crying since the news of her unexpected death broke.

"I never knew... I never knew life could be this cruel. I thought after everything, all the hell and loss, it would have tried to make it up to her somehow," she reaches for a tissue from her bag, taking one for herself and handing one to him.

"Life is unfair."

"I hate this."

"So do I," he croaks out.

She lifts her head and studies his stony face closely. "She wouldn't want you to do this to yourself."

"Just stop... you don't get to tell me what she would want," he bites out. "I know you were best friends and that you loved her but that doesn't give you the right to speak for her! Nobody knows what she'd want or say because she's not here!_ She's_ dead."

"I know," Caroline screams, "I know she's dead and I hate that just as much as you do."

"No!," he shakes his head, "you can't possibly hate it as much as I do. I was supposed to marry her right here in this church. And now I'm suppose to say goodbye?" His thunderous voice bounces off the stone walls, creating an echo in its wake.

Overcome, she throws her arms around his neck and pulls him close. "You are not alone," she chants over and over again. She manages to pacify him just before the church doors open and people begin to pour in, quickly filling it. It's as if the entire town has come out to pay their last respects.

As he looks around, he recognizes so many faces, most of whom have already received invitations to their wedding. She wanted all of them to witness their nuptials. He was prepared to stand at the altar, look into their faces and see the same joy he expected to feel on that day as he watched his bride come down the aisle. But looking at them now, sorrow carving their faces and tears falling unbidden, he closes his eyes a moment to compose himself.

When he sits, those she loved best surround him and take their place beside the one she loved the most.

The ceremony begins with pretty words. Muffled cries and soft strains of music sound throughout the church. But it's lost on him. He sits there in a daze, muting everything out. All he can really focus on is the coffin that lies at the foot of the altar, the one that will hold her body for eternity.

When their neighbors and friends begin to trickle up to the front of the church, he pays attention, laughing and crying along with them as they relay stories of her both as a child and as an adult, describe her antics and read quotes that remind them of the amazing woman he was supposed to spend his life with. No matter their best intentions, not a single one of them did her justice. She was such a force of nature that it was impossible to achieve it with mere words.

They all look to him in expectation after the last person leaves the podium and walks back to his seat. Swallowing thickly, Damon slowly makes his way to the altar and stands before them. Running his hand first over his face and then through his hair, he takes a deep breath and meets their faces, wordlessly trying to show them that he is not going to break or fall. He will get through this somehow for _her. _

"I... I don't really know what to say. Everything that can be said about her has already been spoken with great eloquence I might add. What a great, loving person she was. I... um... I was supposed to marry her, right here in this spot, in front of all of you," he glances down at the floor that marks where they were going to pledge themselves to each other. "I'm sure you all already know that, you would have received your invitations by now. Words don't seem sufficient enough to tell you about her or how much I loved her. So I'm going to use her words. I thought that might be better... more appropriate. Besides, she was never given the chance to say them..."

Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he retrieves a piece of paper. Unfolding it carefully, he again meets everyone's eyes for a moment, before locking his own with the paper, the one that holds her delicate handwriting. Clearing his throat, he begins to read.

"Here I am, in front of all of you just like I wanted. This is how I have always pictured it, surrounded by the ones I love so much, our friends and family. Nothing compares to this feeling of being loved so completely by them and by you, Damon. I'm going to be honest, I never thought this day would come and yet here it is all the same. The day when I am finally able to tell the world how I feel. I love you beyond reason, beyond comprehension. I love you to the very depths of my soul and to the ends of the earth itself. No matter what should happen in this life or the next, my love for you will always persevere. The inevitable challenges, occasional harsh words, they will not part us nor will they cease my love for you. Though lovers will be lost, love shall not and death shall have no dominion."

When he finishes, the strength that allowed him to read her vows vanishes, his knees buckle and he topples to the floor. The paper holding her vows floats from his hand and lands somewhere on the ground, hitting it much more softly that he did. In his moment of need, the entire congregation surrounds him...

In the end, it takes all of them to get him to the cemetery. The rows of graves are mostly covered with snow and dead plants. Ice crunches beneath their feet as they walk in perfect sync with one another.

As he stands between her best friend and his brother, he drowns out the voice of the celebrant presiding over her fresh grave. He does however, give into the crisp chill in the air as it blows by.

Feeling his two anchors release their grip on him, he looks up as they move to her casket, each placing a single white rose over the earth where she will now permanently sleep. They retake their place beside him and once again everyone looks at him in expectation, as if he is supposed to know what to do.

Stepping forward on heavy legs, he walks to the casket. Taking his cues from the priest, he bends down and takes a handful of freshly raised dirt. Holding it over her, he opens his hand, letting it fall between his fingers and cascade onto the lid. The darkness of it provides a stark contrast to the white of the roses. The gentle pelting sound it makes when hitting the wood penetrates his haze and it's as if the car that took her life crashes into him, catapulting him into his new reality, the one without her in it.

He _is_ at her funeral, he's piling dirt on top of_ her_ coffin._ She is dead. _ And she's never coming back. The weight of it sends him crumbling to the ground.

Mere seconds pass before he feels a hand on his back, a strong yet gentle touch that he instantly recognizes as his brother's. Stefan's voice tries to urge him to step away. But he refuses and everyone else knows to back away and give him space to let her go in his way, on his own terms.

"I love you," he repeats over and over again as if in prayer.

Finally, he allows himself to be pulled from the grave by her best friend who continues to assure him that he'll never be alone. He clings to her and his brother as she's lowered into the ground and then the earth that surrounds her grave begins to cover her coffin.

When it's done and most of the crowd begins to trickle away, he inches his way over and spreads his palm over the earth that's been packed on top, hoping to feel a connection to her.

"Time to go, Damon," his brother calls out softly.

Curling his fingers around another handful of loose soil, he nods his head and tears begin to roll down his cheeks, settling on the ground beneath him. The woman he loves, the woman that he was meant to marry, the woman he was supposed to have years with, lays beneath him. Slowly the painful truth pervades his mind and heart, enough so that he finally manages to say only one thing.

"Goodbye, Elena."


End file.
